Growing up Mormon, you learn how to be very, very organized, and it's a passionate group. I mean, in that way, it's prepared me very well for Hollywood.

You know, growing up Mormon, I always got the sense that it was hard for the leaders of the church to feel like they were outside of Christianity. I think, you know Mormon people believe that they are Christian, and a lot of people outside of the Mormon Church, you know, don't see them that way.

Mom got very heated about the new government policy of Don't Ask, Don't Tell. In her view it was going to allow closeted gay people into her military and she was really against it... she just assumed I agreed with her opinions.

Eventually my courageous Mom did something we do all too rarely. She got on a plane and she came to see me in L.A. - this place where we'd always been told sinners lived. She came to see my gay friends.

When we decide to bring a child to this world, as a parent, it becomes a responsibility to build a good healthy body by inculcating some of the good habits in the child.

My parents never pushed me to be an actress. You can come from a family of actors, and sometimes there have been families that grow you up as an actor, but this wasn't my situation. It's very important to find your own way because it's something you then have to confront yourself.

People lament that there's no roles being written for South Asian or Muslim characters. But their parents don't want their children to go into the entertainment field. You don't get it both ways.

For me, the toughest thing for kids to deal with is when the parents are fighting. It's not violence on them - it's the feeling of violence in the family.